shut up and let me see your jazz hands

Whoops. Been so busy with Irene here that I haven't had much time on the internet and didn't manage to get my reading post done on Wednesday or even on Thursday! Still, I had a lot to talk about this week and by next week will surely have forgotten, so I'd better do it now while I have a chance. :D

What are you currently reading?
Currently back to reading manga only, I guess? I'm about halfway through two different volumes, 7 Seeds 24 and Aozora Yell 11. Aozora Yell is one that I bought several months ago and it's just been sitting on my desk because I always go for my iphone instead of physical books. But since I'm not doing a book club book this round, I thought I would try and read some physical books (both prose and manga) that I have sitting around, as I really like the idea of using the book club to read non-ebooks.

I forgot how much I love Aozora Yell. How could I have forgotten? It's just so, so, so cute. (If you're not familiar with the series, you may be familiar with the author from her other series, High School Debut, which actually did get an official English release. All her stuff is the same sweet/heartwarming kind of thing.) This volume starts Tsubasa's second year, so there are a bunch of new characters introduced as new first-years join the brass band.

Meanwhile in 7 Seeds, things continue to get more and more exciting. Really, I am just absolutely blown away by the most recent turn of events. How does Tamura-sensei manage to keep coming up with these awesome ideas?

What did you recently finish reading?
Well, on Sunday I finished Go by Kaneshiro Kazuki, exactly on the last day of that book club round, so perfect timing. :) Here's my book club questions for the end of the round:

1. Are you glad you've finally read this book? Would you read more books in this genre or by this author as a result? Would you recommend this book to others?

Very glad I finally read it! Like I said in my initial post, I watched the movie over ten years ago and bought the book soon after and it's just been sitting here ever since. XD Plus it's very good timing since I'm heading to Book Off next week and taking some stuff to sell and I can include this with my manga and CDs.

I don't think the author has really written a whole lot else, and the genre is just...modern fiction/literary fiction, I guess. Which is what I mostly read in Japanese anyway. I would recommend it to anyone who can read Japanese! It's both an interesting story and a good look at what it's like to be an ethnic minority in Japan.

2. What's your favourite quote or scene from the book? Alternatively, which is your least favourite, or the one that made you think the most, or the one that made you lose all patience with the book?
I don't really tend to think of books in terms of favorite scenes and least favorite scenes.

3. How did you enjoy reading to a deadline? Were you strict with yourself? Did you have a schedule? Was the book too long or too short for the time frame of the challenge?

This book was really the perfect length (a bit under 250 pages). If I were reading an ebook, I could do with something longer, but since this was a physical book, it meant that my two main reading times (in bed before going to sleep and on my lunch breaks at work) were times I was reading something other than the book club book. (I don't want to lug a physical book to work and I don't have a bedside lamp, so the only reading I can do is with something that has its own light like my phone.) By reading about twenty pages a day, I was able to keep on track while still being able to miss a day or two if I didn't have time to get to my reading. I didn't really have a set schedule, just tried to keep to about that number of pages each time.

In addition to my book club book, I also finally finished the fic I was reading for what felt like forever!

How the mouth changes its shape (132531 words) by breathedout
Chapters: 20/20
Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John(nie) Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Victor(ia) Trevor, John(nie) Watson/OFC
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John(nie) Watson, Victor(ia) Trevor, Sally Donovan, Original Characters, lots of them
Additional Tags: Genderswap, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Butch/Femme, Gender Issues, Gender Roles, Case Fic, bildungsroman, World War II
Summary: 1955. Under the placid veneer of suburban playparks and middle-class conformity churns a hidden London: femmes and butches dancing close in basement bars; clandestine love between women. To Sherlock Holmes, struggling private detective and mistress of disguise, it’s a realm she renounced years before. To Johnnie Watson, daredevil ambulance driver turned auto mechanic, it’s become a little too familiar. But when someone is murdered in the washroom of the city’s most notorious lesbian club, the investigation will lead both women to reconsider their assumptions about themselves, each other, and the world in which they live.

This was really good! I've not read anything this long in years and the length was definitely daunting, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. I definitely found Sherlock more likable as a woman (I'm sure that male!Sherlock is often written in a more likable way in fic than he is on the show, but here it was more that I didn't find the arrogance as off-putting in a female character vs a male character).

What do you think you'll read next?
I just realised I hadn't downloaded this week's Jump, so that for sure! But also in addition to Aozora Yell, I'd like to read at least one other volume of physical manga that I have here on my desk, maybe either Tegami Bachi 15 or Tera Girl 2. Also I would like to read one of the non-manga books on my shelf, something short that I can finish in the two weeks of the book club round, so that I'm ready to start fresh with a new book when the round I'm sitting out ends. A likely candidate is All I Asking for Is My Body by Milton Murayama, since it's only about a hundred pages long.

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 22, chapter 115 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 22, chapter 113 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Finally, the last chapter of volume 21! I'll be starting on 22 next month. :)

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 21, chapter 111 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Well, vol. 22 is out now, and I have scans of it, so hopefully I can finish up the last two chapters of vol. 21 fairly soon and get started on that! :D (I haven't had a chance to read it myself yet, though.)

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 21, chapter 109 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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I was originally going to do a joint post for 107 and 108, since 107 is almost entirely textless, but somehow I wrote almost 600 words of summary for it anyway? So I guess I will just go ahead and post it on its own. XD

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 21, chapter 107 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 20, chapter 105 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 20, chapter 103 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Title: Crazy for You
Author: Shiina Karuho
Number of Volumes: 6
My Rating: 4/5

Summary: Sachi goes to an all-girls' school and has zero experience with boys. When she goes on a group date with some girls in her class, she falls for Yuki, but he says while he really likes Sachi, he could never see her as girlfriend material. They try to be just friends, but soon things get even more complicated, and although she knows the best thing would be to move on and find happiness with someone else, she just can't seem to get over Yuki.

Review: This is an earlier series by the author of Kimi ni Todoke, which is one of my favorite manga ever. This has a lot of what I like in Kimi ni Todoke, but I really am not that big a fan of love-triangle plots, especially ones like this. I actually liked the guy she didn't get with a lot more (except for the part where he threatened to rape her if she didn't choose him (!?), which was totally OOC and gross and yet not treated as such in the text). I did like how Yuki's ~first love he could never get over~ was handled, though. And this has some great friendships. Definitely an enjoyable read, just not as awesome as Kimi ni Todoke (which I shouldn't have expected, but still).


This series has been fully scanlated (it's not listed as complete on this group's page, but that's just because they haven't done the unrelated one-shot included in the last volume).

1. So I work next to a Taco Bell and a lot of us at work eat over there fairly often, and a lot of folks who work there come into our store to buy lunch and snacks. Apparently Taco Bell is relaunching their breakfast line, and they have these coupons for free items, and so yesterday one of the girls who works there gave us a whole book of them to share amongst ourselves and give to any customers if we want. She also said we can use multiple ones at a time, even though they say just one per customer per visit. So tomorrow is on of my morning days and I'm planning to go a bit early and have a free breakfast burrito and Cinnabon puff thingies. :D

2. The Craigslist guy came today and I am now the proud owner of $50 and he is the proud owner of an exercise bike. I kind of wish we could keep it, but it's always seemed too big for this house, and we are going to be downgrading from two bedrooms to no bedrooms, so there will definitely be no room for it. XD Also I'm pretty sure the guy and his wife took the magazines we had out on the curb, too, as I happened to look outside five or ten minutes after they'd left and the magazines were gone.

3. I finished reading the newest volume of Kimi ni Todoke today and omg it's so awesome! It's mostly flashbacks of wee!Chizu and Ryu and they are just so adorable and it made me all flaily reading it. Especially Ryu! I just...gah! His little face! And how Chizu understands him when nobody else does! As for Ayane and Kent, idk idk. I like Kent a lot, and I won't be unhappy if he and Ayane get together (which at this point seems kind of inevitable), but I also really like Ayane and Pin! And if I were really to have my heart's wish (which has like zero chance of being true) I like asexual!Ayane and Kent as her gay best friend. I mean, she talks about never having liked anyone before! And Kent has this crowd of girls that hang around him because it's nice having a guy friend they can confide their love woes to. XD It's all right there! So yeah. I know that's not going to happen, and I'm pretty okay with that. I wouldn't mind the fanfic, though.